New cosmetic regulation to strengthen
product safety and to cut red tape

The European Commission has proposed to simplify
the European law on cosmetics and: 27 transposing national pieces of legislation
representing over 3500 pages of legal text will be replaced by one single
regulation. The EU Cosmetics Directive from 1976 has become a
“patchwork” of 55 amendments without coherent terminology.
Today’s proposal aims at strengthening product safety while reducing costs
for businesses. For example, requirements for product safety assessments are
clarified and simplified notification rules for new cosmetics cut administrative
costs for enterprises by 50%. The existing provisions on the ban and phasing-out
of animal-tests for cosmetic products by 2009/2013 remain untouched.

Commission Vice-President Günter Verheugen, responsible for enterprise
and industry policies, said: “The law on cosmetics is an example how a
piece of EU legislation can be “ripe” for simplification. Working
with 27 different transposing legislations is more costly and burdensome for the
cosmetics industry than necessary. With today’s proposal we increase
product safety while reducing administrative costs and scratching unnecessary
legislation.”

The Cosmetics Directive sets the legal framework to ensure the safety of
cosmetics. The differences in the 27 national transposing laws create additional
costs for industry without contributing to product safety. Many provisions
appear in the wrong context and the detailed regulation of individual substances
used for cosmetics has proven very complex, resource-intensive and difficult to
administer. With the proposal of a new Regulation the Commission pursues
essentially two aims: ensuring a high level of safety of cosmetic
products in the future by strengthening manufacturer responsibility and
in-market control aspects while cutting unnecessary administrative
burden. To this end, the Commission proposal leads to inter alia:

Clarified minimum requirements for thesafety assessment of
cosmetic products thus strengthening further the safety of cosmetic products
placed on the EU market;

Rules for reporting of undesirable effects to the supervising
authorities, product withdrawal, and coordination of enforcement among
Member States authorities;

Scratching of national laws and regulations amounting to over 3500
pages of legal text in the EU by introducing a single EU-law for
cosmetics;

Rules for reporting of undesirable effects to the supervising
authorities, product withdrawal, and coordination of enforcement among
Member States authorities.

Background

Cosmetics include products which are vital for the health and well-being of
consumers such as sunscreen products, tooth paste and cleansing products. EU
companies are world leader in this sector with over 3000 cosmetic manufacturers.
The European market for cosmetic product is worth approx. 65 billion EUR and
creates directly and indirectly over 350.000 jobs.

More information, as well as the text of the proposal and the impact
assessment is available here:
EN,
DE, FR